Havens Food Cooperative

Havens Food Cooperative is a community initiative dedicated to fighting food waste and feeding the community.

The project operates under the umbrella of Havens Community Hub CIC, and has been running since 2020. With a team of over 50 volunteers, surplus food is collected from over 20 local stores and then redistributed via our daily community pantry and through our pop up pantry scheme, ensuring that no food goes to waste. The food and items we receive and redistribute often include short shelf-life products, mislabelled goods, ‘wonky’ produce, or overstocked supplies.

The food we rescue supports people facing food insecurity, as well as those who choose to help the planet by preventing good food from ending up in landfill.

Our Community Pantry is run 365 days a year from Havens Community Hub in Denton, Newhaven at 2A Thompson Road, BN9 0RS, it is restocked daily at 9am and is available until supplies run out. Anyone is welcome to use the community pantry.

Through our Pop-up Pantry Scheme, we are also proud to support schools, social clubs, youth groups, food support services and other community organisations by donating surplus food parcels that can be used or shared in different settings, helping us reach even more people across the wider community. Some of our groups supported even distribute the food publicly to support the wider community.

We currently work with a range of partners including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Lidl, Co-op, Waitrose, Asda, M&S and Co-op. Thanks to this collaboration, we are saving more than 3 tonnes of food from landfill every week, helping to feed hundreds of households a week and preventing the release of greenhouse gas emissions, as a result of food no longer reaching landfill.